You're in the Jungle, Baby!
by NewBornBaby
Summary: MUSE FANFIC CONTEST. Yes, I'm taking the plunge, I'll see if it works or not. But before being a contest, it's a story feat. Matt Bellamy and Dom Howard. Sort of BellDom I guess. I hope you'll like it! :D UPDATE: Well, now we know it hasn't worked, due to the lack of participants. Too bad !
1. Welcome to the jungle

**-This could totally fizzle out...or this could work great. We'll see. It'll depend on how many people are willing to participate :) If it doesn't work as a contest I'll still continue it as my own story.  
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**Anyway, all the 'rules' are at the end of the third chapter and the * * aren't jumps in time but sort of checkpoints.**

**-Disclaimer: The title of the story comes from 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns N' Roses, and so does the first chapter's title.**  
><strong>The second chapter's title was taken from 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' by The Token, and the third one in from 'Fever' by Peggy Lee.<strong>

**Of course, none of this ever happened, and I sort of hope that it _won't_ ever happen...  
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**-A big, big, big thank you to Cranberriez, my beta, for proofreading these 3 chapters. As always, it was more than helpful. :)**

**PS: a nice thing you can listen to while reading - www.**[DELETE THE BRACKETS]**youtube**[DELETE THE BRACKETS]** watch?v=VGEHYY8c8VM  
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><p>When Dominic woke up, he wished he hadn't. His head was throbbing and it felt like it was on the verge of bursting. He tried to swallow, and noticed right away that it was abnormally difficult to gulp. It was like fighting against gravity. Not mentioning the fact that there wasn't any saliva left to swallow either.<p>

What he didn't know yet was that he _was_ fighting against gravity.

After having opened his eyes with some difficulty, squinting when the feeble light stung them, Dom blinked a few times and the haze gradually drifted before his eyes. When his sight finally focused, it was on some lush vegetation. There was something odd with the picture though. The leaves were shiny with dew, or what looked like dew, but instead of bending under the light weight of the water, they were pointing skywards. As if the tree they were attached to was standing upside down...

Something else was strange too. The scenery was...well, literally framed. Ovally so. It was like looking at the world outside through...a porthole.

Yes, it was a porthole alright. Dom was sure of it now that he examined the outline of the little window. Bolts and screws... Aluminum perhaps? ...A boat?

No.

A cabin.

A _plane_.

It all flooded back to him then. Muse had been touring in Brazil. Matt had wanted to fly over the Amazon and enjoy a rainforest aerial tour. Just a little tourist flight. And he had dragged Dom along, singing the praises and beauties of the largest forest on earth. But their plane had been caught in a tropical rain...the kind that doesn't call before coming. And the kind that can do damage. A _lot_ of damage.

Dom's eyes swept over his surroundings, this time he wanted to have a full vision of the environment.

The cabin was a _wreck_. Large pieces of creased junk, crumpled sheet metal, iron bars all littered the ground. There were wide black scars on the ground as well as on what was left of the cabin's wall. It looked like burnt marks, as if tiny fires had been born there and had quickly died, soaked off by the rain.

Dom was still sitting on his seat, but it was only due to the safety belt, which was lacerating his thighs since his whole body's weight was tugging on it. His seat was in the tail of the aircraft, and the aforementioned tail was hovering vertically, a few meters above the ground, entangled in enormous lianas' nodes. So, it hadn't been the tree which had been upside down. It had been Dom. _Dom_ was sitting upside down. Like some sort of big bat hanging from the ceiling.

A strong smell of damp clay soil was mingled to the one of metal. It was so potent that it titillated Dom's tongue and increased his thirst. It wasn't raining anymore, although the light was still gray, and the steady ambient sounds of the rainforest were filling the air.

Dom whimpered as he fully took in the scene of destruction around him. Damn Matt and his crazy ideas!

Wait... Matt. Matthew. Matt. Where the hell was Matt? !

A sudden, overpowering panic took hold of Dom's mind as his eyes frantically searched for his friend. Matt had been sitting between Dom and the porthole during the flight. But there wasn't any seat next to Dom's one right now. Judging by the marks on the cabin's 'floor', Matt seat had been ripped away when they had crashed. Dom craned his neck to inspect the ground under the levitating, shattered cabin.

When he finally spotted his friend, his heart took a large, nasty leap from his chest into his mouth. Matthew was lying flat on his stomach, half blanketed by the aircraft's debris, and he was completely still.

"MATT!" Dom cried, only barely registering the burning pain in his dry throat when he shouted.

With frenzied, uncoordinated movements, he tugged at his seatbelt buckle, swearing when it didn't want to open. If Dominic had been more composed, it probably would have been much easier for him to deal with his buckle; but the heart-freezing sight of Matt lying there, broken, just a few meters below had drained all common sense out of him.

The seatbelt eventually let go, and Dominic had to face some consequences which he hadn't anticipated.

His free fall, of almost four meters high, sent him hitting the ground with enough force to steal all breath out of his lungs. Gasping for air, he rolled on his side and held his belly. Luckily, he hadn't fallen on Matt.

Once the little black spots stopped blurring his sight, Dom got onto his knees and crawled next to Matt's unmoving figure. He pushed the fragments up and away from Matt's body and, little by little, got his friend out of the rubbles.

"Matt! Matt, wake up!" Dom instructed, laying a hand on Matthew's back but without shaking him, because some distant part of his mind knew one shouldn't jolt an injured body.

When Matt didn't react a bit, Dom began imploring the air around him. "Please, I'm begging you... I'm supplicating... If anything's up there... Please, make sure that he's not dead. I swear I'll go the church every fucking sunday, just _please_, let him be alive!"

Matt was still as motionless as a corpse and Dom suddenly couldn't take it anymore. "_MATTHEW!_" he shouted in the frontman's ear, adding a big slap of Matt's shoulder to his sobbing cry.

Matt coughed and Dom felt a gratitude so full that he thought his heart was going to melt out of it. Immediately after his cough, Matt leaned up on both his elbows, his chest rising a few inches up above the muddy ground, and he threw up. But the drummer didn't mind, and while a huge smile crossed his face, he dropped backwards and plonked his arse on the soil.

"You're alive!" he half-exclaimed, half-laughed.

But his sentence had been entirely covered by a howl of pain which had torn free from Matt's throat. Because when Dom had sat, he'd involuntarily brushed against Matt's left leg and an excruciating pain had shot up Matt's entire body.

"OW! FUCK!" Matt bawled as he reflexively extended his arms toward the source of the pain, without reaching it. Then he collapsed onto his back, panting.

Relief was replaced by a new sort of worry in Dom's mind and he carefully moved closer to Matt again and squatted down. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Of course he'd known the answer to his question beforehand, since he'd already started to tear Matt's left pants leg.

"Shin's broken," Matt spluttered with a husky voice, sure of what he was saying. Only a bone fracture could be _that_ painful.

The middle of the frontman's leg was swollen and had turned purple.

"Here?" Dom asked as his fingers scarcely skimmed the darkest spot on Matt's skin.

Matt inhaled sharply and winced. "Yes. Here," he uttered through gritted teeth, looking daggers at Dom.

Now that Dom had the confirmation that the bone was indeed broken, he didn't really know what to do of this information. "Well...at least it's not a compound fracture..." he murmured.

"What a relief," Matt answered sarcastically, his voice strained because of the pain.

Dom remained silent, for he didn't know what to say to that, nor how to help Matt. The latter didn't talk either, but he broke the silence between them when he clicked his tongue against his palate, trying to salivate a bit.

"Yeah, I know. I'm so bloody thirsty too," Dominic told him.

Matt raised his arm and pointed at something beyond Dom, overhead. "There're water bottles in that thing."

The drummer twisted his head around in order to see what his friend was trying to show him. It looked like a built-in, office sized fridge, embedded in the cabin wall, at the very end of the plane's tail. And so high above their head right now... Out of reach.

Of course Matt's seat _had_ to get ripped off and result in Matt breaking his leg, but the fridge door just couldn't have opened in the crash for the bottles to drop onto the floor and be accessible to them. No, no...they would have been too lucky if it had been the case.

They both realised that at the same time and sighed, defeated.

"What about the pilot?" Matt asked out of the blue, as he tried to shift into a more upright position.

Holy crow! How could have Dom forgotten about him? ! He'd been so centered on Matt's shape that he had completely neglected the poor bugger who'd agreed on taking them for a little flyover...

"Stay here," Dom said, "I'm gonna check on him, see if he needs help." Then he stood and headed towards the cockpit, which was lying on its side, at the end of a long trench it had dug when they'd crashed.

"Don't think I'm gonna go anywhere," Matt muttered just before grimacing at the sorry sight of his left leg.

But Dominic hadn't heard, he was too preoccupied. Why hadn't the pilot called out to them already? Had he left? It was possible after all, Dom didn't know for how long he'd been unconscious... Perhaps the pilot had gone searching for help. Or perhaps he had abandoned them... This version narrowed Dom's throat, and his stomach was turning.

The drummer's thoughts were naive, however. And far from reality.

It was when he climbed into the ruined cockpit that Matthew started calling him.

Dom had to stride over various obstacles in order to reach the pilot's seat: an overturned toolbox, a black electricity cable with some wires showing here and there...

"Dom?"

"Yes, Matt. I'm not there yet... Just give me a sec-"

The end of Dom's answer died in his mouth when he reached the pilot.

The pilot's head was lolling sideways, and for just a second, Dominic thought that he might be sleeping, or passed out. But then he noticed the thin trails of blood dripping on each corner of the pilot's mouth. And how could he have missed the head of the thick metallic bar, red with blood, and sticking out of the man's chest?

This time, Dom's stomach dropped. "Good Lord..." he breathed.

"Dom!"

The drummer attempted to swallow again. "I don't think there's anything left we can do for him..." he said, too low for Matt to be able to hear.

Trying to overcome his mixed feelings, guilt, revulsion, fear, Dom dipped over the dead body of the pilot and examined what once must have been the plane's dashboard. Maybe there was some sort of radio equipment there that they could use...but Dom was such a simpleton when it came to mechanics...

"DOMINIC HOWARD!"

Because he'd been so tense, Dom jumped out of his skin when Matt shouted. He stumbled backwards, tripped on the toolbox and fell arse over teakettle in the mud, just out of the cockpit. When he got to his feet again, his heart was pounding in his temples.

"What is it? !" Dominic exclaimed, once Matt was in sight again, torn between irritation and worry. Matthew was still lying on his back, staring overhead, and Dom couldn't see any big anaconda in the vicinity.

"I think we should get out of here," Matt stated with an agitated tone.

"...What?" Dom asked after a couple of seconds, sounding like a moron to his own ears.

"We should get out of here," Matt repeated, more and more stressed, "like, _right now_."

As if to illustrate his words, one of the lianas above Dom's head snapped and the cabin dropped about twenty inches, before being stopped by the rest of the vegetation again.

Both of the musicians froze, barely allowing themselves to breathe. Dom's eyes slowly slid up to glance at the metal beast above. Two tons of aluminium, heavily swaying over their heads.

Dom couldn't hold it back: "crap."

A second liana gave way, the cabin fell a short distance again with a loud grinding as a result. That got Dom into action. He was crouching next to Matt in a flash and started to slip an arm under the singer's frail shoulders.

"Can you stand?"

Matthew wrapped his arms around Dom, "I- I don't know..." He was scared of the pain and he didn't want to take the risk to lean on his bad leg by mistake, but the idea of being trapped in an aluminium prison for...well, possibly for ever, wasn't very appealing. Especially when it occurred to him that this prison would turn into a walk-in oven once the skies cleared up.

The metal heavily creaked for the third time and Dominic's heart kicked into overdrive. He lifted his friend to his feet roughly, without wasting any more time. Matt hadn't expected it and when his left foot involuntarily planted itself on the ground, the agony it plunged him in seized his lungs, preventing any protest from escaping his lips, and drained all strength from his knees.

The drummer didn't try to decipher Matt's body language, his attention was entirely focused on the looming threat overhead. He hefted Matt half on to his shoulder, ready to carry all his weight if necessary. It was a good thing he'd been travelling with small-Matt and not big-Chris...

The two of them, tightly entwined, started forward, but before they could take their second, limping step towards the jungle around the wreckage, their 'safety net' broke.


	2. In the jungle, the mighty jungle

When the plane had been sliced in half during the crash, the torn fuselage had become sharper than razor blades. It had only been a matter of time before the sharpness of the fracture's edges combined with the cabin's humongous weight would have slashed its way through the crisp vegetation.

And so the cabin descended upon them. They helplessly watched the comforting view of the jungle being swept away by a dark grey wall of metal in front of them. Just like a human would capture small insects in an overturned glass, it felt like some giant, divine hand had deliberately sealed them in: the aluminium sank deeply into the tender soil around the two Englishmen with a loud thud, completely immuring them.

Matt and Dom were clinging to each other for dear life in the dim light of the secluded place, and since the cabin was acting like a sounding box, their ragged, heavy breathing resonated in their ears.

Fortunately for them, the cabin had settled unevenly into the ground. And being seen from outside, it strangely shared some eerie resemblance with the leaning tower of Pisa. But of course they couldn't know that yet. So when an almighty grinding cut through the air, it terrorised them: Dom's blood ran cold and Matt's heart thumped against his ribcage as if it wanted to get out.

Ever so slowly, their prison started to shift. The wall off to their left- which used to be the cabin's ceiling- slid upwards, millimetre by millimetre it rose in the ground where it had previously sank, dragging a fine layer of dark mud along during its ascent. On the other hand, the wall to their right- the cabin's 'floor'- was plunging deeper in the soil at an angle. The whole movement was being accompanied by noises you would more likely expect from a boat sinking...not a plane.

Eventually, the edge of the cabin's fractured ceiling broke free of the fertile, charred soil that was so typical of the rain forest, and the gray light coming from outside oozed through the growing space between the metal and the ground. That sudden gleam caught Dom's eye, and when he looked down at it, he understood what was happening. He retreated toward that small- but widening- opening, bringing a teetering Matt along with him, and crouched down near it since he guessed that the aluminium edge would swing over their head sooner or later.

And it did. The speed of the cabin's pivoting increased exponentially. So much so that when the opening became large enough for them to pass through, Dom bolted across it, forcing Matt to quicken his pace out, since the cabin's entrance was now charging them at the same time that the tail kept on falling down.

Finally, it hit the ground with a last deafening rumble, splashing mud several feet away.

And then everything was quiet and steady again. The two musicians were safe from any immediate threat.

Head throbbing from the adrenalin rush, Dom carelessly let go of Matt and faced the open mouth of the cabin, which was now partly congested by heaps of earth. Those had been gathered when the cabin had scraped the soil, churning it up like an oversized ice cream spoon.

The drummer posted himself in front of it, striking a sort of 'Peter Pan pose', with his arms right-angled and his fists resting against his hips.

"Holy _shit!_... That was close!" he exclaimed victoriously, a satisfied grin spreading on his face.

Perhaps his brain had a flash of remembrance, or perhaps he just possessed a sixth sense...be that as it may he suddenly whirled on his heels, feeling extremely worried about Matt. And that was a fortunate decision, for it enabled him to catch the frontman before he could collapse on the ground.

"Woa... I've got you." Dom held his friend tightly, both arms propped under the latter's armpits.

Matthew had experienced his own kick of adrenalin when the plane's tail had fallen down on them like a hungry shark, and the burning hormone had stifled a great deal of the pain he'd been undergoing before; that blinding, maddening pain when his foot had hit the ground. But the rush had past, sucking Matt's energy out with it. The weight of utter exhaustion was now held up only by the thinnest sliver of his will...and by Dom's supporting form.

Understanding that his friend's last glimmer of vigour was being entirely dedicated to keeping him from passing out, Dominic swept Matt's body up against him. Matthew's 120 lbs of soaking wet weight wouldn't cause the drummer any problem.

Under normal circumstances, Matt would probably have grumbled about being carried around like a girl, but right now, the only thing he felt was the unqualified relief of having his body weight lifted off of his left leg.

Dominic gently laid him down a few metres away, against one of the plane's torn off wings that was planted in the ground with a nice angle, acting as a good makeshift backrest.

Dom's heart clenched when he pulled away from Matt and took in his livid face, shiny with a thin coat of sweat. Lengthy laboured breaths were coming out of Matt's lips- which had turned slightly mauve- and under heavy eyelids, his eyes seemed to be staring into the void around the ground.

"God, Matt..." Dom began, but his voice broke. He swallowed and tried to sound a little bit less worried sick. "You look awful, mate."

As lost as he was in his ocean of numbing pain, Matthew had still caught that and tried to chuckle in return. But the only sound that came out of his mouth was a breathless gasp. "I _feel_ awful," he whispered before his head fell back against the hard metal of the wing and he gazed at his friend.

Dominic's brows had drawn together in disquiet, breaking his usually peaceful and happy visage.

Matt moistened his lips before adding: "right now...you don't look like you could enter a beauty pageant either you know," a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Dominic's hands flew to his face, as he immediately felt self-conscious, and his fingers lightly palpated his skin. His cheekbones did feel a bit tender, they were probably bruised...and his right eye's vision had narrowed a little, the eyelid felt puffy. Did he had a black eye? He'd probably got it when he'd smashed on the ground after having unfastened his seatbelt...

While the drummer's train of thoughts kept going, the most adorable expressions crossed his face, from pouting to blushing, it clearly showed that Matt's remark had cut him to the quick. Even if there wasn't any real reason for him to feel shy about his appearance right now... The frontman had already seen him in much, _much_ more embarassing positions.

This time, Matthew managed to chortle properly. Dom's eyes shifted to the other's face and he understood that Matt had only been teasing him, and that he had played right into the singer's hands. Dom smiled back let his hands drop into his lap. If Matt was capable of chaffing, it meant that he was getting better.

"Huh... Well, you'd be surprised you know... Some girls like it rough," Dominic said.

Satisfied by the half smile on Dom's face that had efficiently replaced the anxious frown, Matt closed his eyes and tried to settle his head more comfortably against the aluminium. "Yeah, sure. But I don't think they mean it that way," he slurred back, still striving to keep his tone light.

Dom smiled but didn't answer; he wanted his friend to rest a bit. Instead he glanced back at the fallen plane's carcass. The water would be accessible now. Dominic turned to Matt again and he saw that the latter's eyes were open and looking at the plane as well.

"I'm gonna see what I can salvage from the rubble," Dom told him. "Do you think you can manage on your own for a few minutes?"

The singer nodded. "Of course I can. Go ahead."

Dominic hesitated for a couple of seconds more yet he eventually got up to his feet. Matt's eyes slid shut once more but he pricked up his ears to keep track of the growing distance between Dom's feet and himself. He'd tried not to sound too enthusiastic when Dominic had advanced the idea of leaving him alone, but he certainly was grateful for it. Enduring hell _and_ not letting it show wasn't easily done at all.

It felt like his brain cells were at war with each other; slaying each other in the confined battle field that was his head.

The last time he'd experienced something close to that was when he'd crunched that worm at the bottom of the only mezcal's bottle he and his mates had ever drunk. That damned larva had been soaked with such a highly concentrated amount of alcohol that it had felt like his head was blowing up! Of course it'd been a dare. And Matt had been the only one with enough intellectual curiosity to bite into it. Well, 'intellectual curiosity'...that was Matt's term for it. 'Sheer madness' had been the others'. It had been a thousand times more brain-crushing than absinthe.

Yes...what he had felt then was close to what he was feeling now. Minus the nerve endings clawing at his left lower limb. His cerebrum was an electric green burning sun, pumping its vital energy from the pure source of suffering anchored in his leg, and its erupting solar flares slashed at his skull's walls, reducing his head's inside to pieces. If only he could make it _stop_...

"Matt!"

Yes, make it stop, one way or the other...

"For Christ's sake Matt, will you wake up!"

The singer's eyes snapped open.

Dominic's worried face had been hovering a few inches away from Matt's and he pulled back when he saw the frontman look back at him, blowing out of his mouth at the same time, feeling relieved again. Dom had a feeling that this switch would be turned on and off very often this day. Worried, relieved, worried, relieved...

Matt glanced at his surroundings nervously in the wake of his friend's alarmed tone, but saw nothing particularly new and therefore cast an inquisitive look at Dom.

"I don't know," Dominic tried to explain, "you were talking in your sleep and-"

"I wasn't sleeping," Matt cut him off.

"Yes you were, and you said-"

"No, I _wasn't_," Matt interrupted him again, sort of rudely. "If I _had_ been sleeping, I wouldn't have been feeling the pain anymore," he added bitterly.

"Well I don't bloody know if it was sleep or delirium," Dom fired back, his voice rising, "but your eyes were closed and you weren't reacting when I tried to shake you out of it and you were saying that you were burning from the inside out and that you wanted it to stop and...and..." Dom's voice wavered and his eyes darted around, not being able to face Matt's anymore, "...and it was quite scary," he finished, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Matthew was staring back at him with clear, round eyes, a bit taken aback by his sudden outburst.

"Oh," the singer stated. He sounded like a scientist whose long-worked theory had just been logically knocked down, point-by-point, by another scholar. "Er...maybe it _was_ delirium then," he acknowledged hesitantly while scratching his head.

Dom still wasn't looking at Matt but he softly huffed through his nose and half-rolled his eyes. He was a bit upset that Matt had doubted his word in the first place.

"Anyway, I brought you these," Dom told his friend, wavering his hand and indicating the stuff he'd carelessly dropped next to them when he'd found Matt squirming and whimpering. "Here, that'll make you feel better," he continued as he handed Matt a bottle of water. "They aren't very fresh, but it's still...well, hydrating I guess."

The singer greedily swallowed long gulps of water, drinking the whole bottle down in a few seconds. He flung it aside and his extended arms asked for a second one. Dom had anticipated his move and he gave him another bottle that he had already picked up.

The drummer sighed. "And it's something we'll need... Hydrating," he whispered, still on the same train of thoughts. He was gazing at the sky overhead. The clouds were fading away and the glaring sun of the tropics was piercing its way through, giving back the vicinity its usual colourfulness and warmth.

He looked down again, distracted by the slurping sounds produced by Matt as he was on his way to drain the second bottle dry as well.

Dom gently squeezed the other's left upper arm. "Slow, Matt. Drink it slow. It'd be a shame if you couldn't keep it down, don't you think?"

Matthew grunted as he tore his mouth away from the bottleneck. "It's only water," he remarked, a bit out of breath.

The drummer nodded. "Maybe, but the first thing you did when you woke up back there," he tilted his head toward the cabin, "was upchucking. The crash has messed up your stomach...amongst other things. So be gentle with it."

"Yes Mommy," Matt quipped, before licking his lower lip. "It feels damn good in all cases."

Dom chuckled under his breath and took a sip of his own bottle. He was lecturing Matt now, but five minutes earlier he'd been the one assaulting water bottle after water bottle in the cabin. And yes, it _did_ feel extremely good to have one's thirst quenched.

Dom spun the plastic lid into place on the bottle top and then rummaged through the other items he'd brought. "I also found this," he said, showing Matt what looked like a first-aid kit. "It was in the cockpit and I think it personally belonged to the pilot. So it's pretty customised. You've got things in there that you wouldn't necessarily find in a classic first-aid kit."

Then he held a particular drug blister in front of his eyes, trying to read what was on its back. "And I _think_... I think this one is a painkiller but-"

Dominic jumped, startled by something that had just flashed in front of him, so fast that it had been blurry. He was now staring at the void since what had been pinched between his thumb and forefinger was currently in Matthew's hands.

Matt pushed one pill out of the blister...then a second one...then a third.

"Er, Matt, you shouldn't..."

Dom's sentence faded into nothing when the singer crammed the three pills in his mouth and washed them down with another gulp of water.

"Damn it Matthew! You didn't even glance at the leaflet!" The drummer told his friend off, after a few seconds of appalled silence.

Matt's only answer was a careless shrug.

"Give me that," Dom ordered, pointing at the blister that was still in Matt's hand.

"What? Why?" the frontman asked, bringing his bottle and the drug blister up against his chest in a protective gesture.

"Because I told you that I was only _thinking_ it were painkillers, I don't know for sure!"

"And? Why would giving it back to you change anything?"

Dom let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. He ran a hand over his face before opening them again. "_Because_... I need to check the drug's name on the blister so that I can read its medication information and be assured that it truly is a painkiller," he said, trying to remain calm.

Matt peeped at the blister in his hand. His stirring headache prevented him from reading anything right now. Then his eyes flicked up to Dom's face again. "I'm sure you've already read the info leaflet. If I give it to you, I know you won't hand it back!" he protested.

"For fuck's sake Matt! You could have just swallowed the most powerful laxative in the world and I wouldn't have a clue!"

That argument hit home. Matthew looked at Dom with a childishly concerned expression on his face and then slowly handed the blister out. The drummer swiftly snatched it out of Matt's fingers and stuffed it in his right front pocket with authority.

"Right. And now you can say goodbye to it for the next eight hours," Dom stated as he stood up.

Matthew stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Of _course_ I had read the leaflet! What do you think? !" Dominic exclaimed with a look that said 'duh'. "It _is_ a painkiller but you shouldn't take more than one or, up to the hilt, two pills at once!"

Matt gaped at him for at least a good ten seconds. Then, slowly: "you _lied_ to me!" His voice was both accusing and astonished.

Dom sighed again and dropped his hands to his sides in a fatalist gesture. "Yes, I'm a liar. And you're a sodding irresponsible kiddy mind inhabiting a 25-year-old man's body. Where's your bloody common sense, Matt? !"

"Fuck common sense! You lied to me!" this time Matt's voice was a hundred percent accusing. "I won't talk to you ever again," he declared as he crossed his arms on his chest. "Not _ever!_"


	3. Captain Smith and Pocahontas

"Fine! Suit yourself," Dom rolled his eyes, exasperated. "I don't need you to talk right now, I only need you to rest."

Matthew angrily pointed at him, "you don't have the slightest idea of what I'm enduring!"

Dom snorted. "Wow, Matt, I'm impressed. You really are true to your word!"

The singer promptly crossed his arms again and looked away, swallowing hard. Tears of anger mixed with frustration threatened to spring to his eyes. Alright, perhaps he shouldn't have taken the three pills at once without having read the leaflet but dosages always had a huge safety margin anyway! Yet what hurt him the most was Dom's lack of understanding and sanctimonious attitude. Matt _hated_ being treated like a child.

Dominic sighed for the umpteenth time and crouched down next to Matt, in order to sort the stuff from the rubble into piles of things that were safe to be within Matt's reaching distance and things that weren't. He selected a couple of medicine boxes which he tossed a few feet away and he made sure that all the water bottles were within easy reach for Matt. All that did nothing to improve the latter's mood, on the contrary.

"So," Dom started, knowing he wouldn't get an answer, "I had planned to take a look around at the surroundings, you never know, I might find something useful. But I hope that I can count on you for not trying to do anything stupid Matt." As he had expected, Matt stayed tongue-tied. "And I hope that if you have _any_ problem...you'll break this 'silence oath' and call out for me to help."

The frontman kept staring at the other side of the clearing, brooding.

"Matt? Can I count on you for that?" Dom said as he leant on his left hand, the closest to Matt, and tried to catch his friend's eye.

Matt didn't deign to look at him but he gave him a quick nod.

"Good." And without further ado, Dom stood and walked to the clearing's border armed only with his plastic water bottle. He peered into the lush vegetation, searching for the most practicable path he could find. And then, after having cast a last glance at Matt behind him, he disappeared between the leaves.

*** F l o c c i n a u c i n i h i l i p i l i f i c a t i o n s ***

Matthew had wanted to tell him to be careful, to stay close to the wreckage, to be safe and not to lose himself. But his pride had made him keep silent.

His shoulders dropped an inch or two when he took in the emptiness around him. Without Dom, the place truly felt deserted. He sighed a sad sigh and his head fell back to rest against the wing again.

For a long moment- how long, he couldn't tell exactly- he just laid there, his eyes half-closed, head buzzing, his mind turning at idling speed, waiting for the painkillers to work their magic.

And then, he heard something. A bird, singing. Its strange song captured his attention. He'd never heard anything quite like it. It was beautiful in a fashion, but above all it was peculiar, and it woken his senses. His head wasn't hurting anymore and the pain in his leg was duller, still there, but manageable.

His eyes opened completely and he admired the vicinity. Of course there was the wreckage off to his left, but straight ahead stood the rain forest.

The afternoon light lay across the clearing in dusty beams. Sifting through the leaves overhead and bathing Matt's surroundings in dark shifting gold. Lianas were slithering between the trees, embracing them, intertwining them.

The bird's song wasn't the only sound in the clearing. Far from it. The forest was swollen with life.

Neither the sight nor the music were ones that you could experience elsewhere than in the Amazon forest. It outrivaled any countryside Matt had ever been to.

The singer's breath caught in his chest. Not because of pain or fear this time, but because of the poignant beauty the forest.

But suddenly something else permeated the air. Something that was coming from behind him and that didn't sound melodious _at all_.

Matt winced. It was shrilly and squeaky...and drawing nearer.

"What the hell is that?" he muttered to himself while he craned his neck, trying to find the source.

"...the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps toniiiight... In the jungle, the quiet jungle, the lion sleeps toniiiiight... EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeEEeeeEEee-um-um-a-weeeeeeh..."

Matt stopped searching when he recognised Dom's voice. His eyes squeezed shut and he huffed. "'Must be kidding me..." he grumbled as he opened his eyes again.

Dominic appeared between two trees and when he met Matt's black stare he shut up at once. But only for a few seconds, because he was quietly humming when he came to sit cross-legged next to Matt.

Had he just found out that they had crashed close to a big city or what? Why else would he be so annoyingly cheerful?

"If this is of any interest to you, mister, learn that I didn't find anything at all," Dom announced.

Matt kept staring at him for a few seconds, one eyebrow raised, without blinking. Then he looked straight ahead again. No matter how long he'd known Dom, he still couldn't get a hang of how his bloody brain worked.

Dom waved his hand about in the air. "Oh wait, I forgot, you won't talk to me ever again. Not ever!" he said, perfectly imitating Matt's previous tone.

The singer made a dismissive sound in response but otherwise stayed quiet.

"Anyway, as I was saying, there's nothing around. Just trees, trees, trees, trees and more trees, lianas, lianas, lianas and lianas again. No sight of human civilization, not even a small village. I didn't see or hear any sweet water stream either," the drummer kept going as he twiddled some pebble he'd found between his fingers.

He cast a glance sideways at Matt and the latter's eyes quickly darted away. Dom sighed and dropped his stone on the ground before bringing his knees up against his chest, clasping his arms around them and resting his chin on the left one.

"Seriously Matt... I don't know what to do," he confessed, his voice low and earnest.

Matt's mask of cold disinterest broke a bit at hearing that, and his lips parted for a couple of seconds but no word came out of his mouth and he closed it again.

The silence stretched between them, making room for the quiet buzzing of insects and the soft brush of the wind against the leaves. The bird had stopped singing but several other species could be heard in the distance...

A warm breeze came from the other side of the clearing, quietly whistled through the cabin's portholes and gently blew past Dom. It was so moist that it made his shirt stick to his skin.

"We're gonna die in here you know."

Dominic had been so lost to his thoughts that it took him a few seconds to process the fact that Matt had just talked. "What?" he asked, blinking rapidly.

"I said, we're gonna die in here," Matt repeated, matter-of-factly.

The drummer was too shocked to joke about Matt breaking his word. "Why are you saying that? !" he exclaimed, as he straightened up.

"Because it's true," Matthew answered calmly, still staring at the trees ahead.

Dom gaped at him for a moment longer, frowning in anger and amazement, before revolting. "NO! Fuck no! I don't _want_ to die here! Don't say that."

For the millionth time today, Matt closed his eyes, shielding himself from his friend's reaction. He sighed shakily and his teeth worried at his bottom lip. When he finally looked at Dom, the drummer understood that Matt truly believed what he was saying.

"I don't want to either," Matthew conceded, "but take a look around you, we're _ants_ in here. You've said it yourself, there isn't a single human being for miles around. We're getting short on drinking water and I can barely move." Dom was breathing hard and shaking his head in denial but Matt continued nonetheless. "We deviated from our original planned route when the storm hit us, so even if there is a rescue squad, they won't be searching for us in the right place..."

"Stop it!" Dom pleaded, forcing Matt to raise his voice a fraction in response.

"...And to top it all off, we're trapped in the one forest on earth where snakes can swallow a human whole and spiders are large enough to fill an entire plate!" the singer finished, his voice pitching on the word 'spiders'.

"Well, I'm not the one who wanted to come here in the first place!" Dom spat out. Some part of him knew he was being totally unconstructive, but he couldn't even begin to get his head around the possibility that the frontman might be right.

Matt rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry for trying to expand your general knowledge..."

"Look where your fucking general knowledge brought us!" Dom bawled.

"Don't be bitter Dom, you know it's not my fault."

"Don't be bitter? !" Dom was on the verge of hysteria. "_Don't be bitter? !_ You're telling me about our upcoming death with that placid little tone of yours and you're asking me not to be BITTER? !"

The drummer stared at his friend with wild eyes, huffing and puffing...enraged. But, contrary to what he had expected, Matt didn't yell back.

Matthew was completely still apart from the rising and sinking of his chest as he breathed heavily. He was frowning and staring at the ground between Dom and himself.

Dominic felt that something was wrong, and little-by-little his anger shifted. First into puzzlement, then into apprehension.

And suddenly, Dom grasped the reason why Matt was being so motionless and froze in turn. He'd seen it too. That indefinite silhouette, just there, on the edge of his field of vision.

Matt's eyes carefully looked up and their two stares met, sharing the same tense caution. Then, by mutual agreement, they slowly turned their head to face what had caught their attention.

Two brown eyes, as dark as the rainforest's earth, were watching them in silence. The native beauty whom they belonged to was the most fierce and gorgeous creature they'd ever set eyes on.

And her athletic body was drawing a bow, ready to loosen a very sharp looking arrow...right in their direction.

*** F l o c c i n a u c i n i h i l i p i l i f i c a t i o n s ***

* * *

><p><strong>*dramatic instumental music* Tadadaaaa!<strong>

**Oh my God, what's gonna happen next? Well, you decide. 'Cause that the contest's aim. Write the sequel.**

**I know that most of my readers write their own stories. And some of you have asked for ideas. Well, that's one. And if you haven't written anything yet, that'd be a good way to start :D (not bragging, not bragging...)**

**You don't have to of course, and if you don't I'd still love it if you could review nonetheless.**

**But if you do want to participate...you'll just make my day. No, my week, my month! (I won't go as far as to say 'my life' ^^)**

**I called it a 'contest' but it isn't really one because I won't name any winner or anything...and there isn't any deadline. I just wanted to share something with you guys (you...all the crazy kids), something that would go a little further than just writing for you or reading your stories. _Sharing_ a story... I thought it was a nice idea :) I'd love to discover how each of you would imagine what could follow. The idea is that you should use your own writing style.  
><strong>

**Now to the 'rules' (you'll see that there're more like 'anti-rules'):**

**-At least 1500 words, distributed in as many chapters as you want. And I said AT LEAST...if you want to write 100 000 words about it please do so ^^.**

**-You can continue the story from any * F l o c c i n a u c i n i h i l i p i l i f i c a t i o n s * sign that you want.**** The one you like the most I guess.**

**-You can change the tense if you want, and the point of view. For example you could write in the present tense, in first person, through Matt/Dom/the native P.O.V. Or you could just keep going with past and third person with the P.O.V. shifting.**

**-That's this story's link: http:/www.[DELETE THE BRACKETS]fanfiction.[DELETE THE BRACKETS]net/s/7343777/1/Youre_in_the_jungle_baby# - It'll probably be a good thing to put it at the beginning of your sequel, if you want people to understand... And because you're not thieves lol.**

**-You can co-write the story with someone if you want.  
><strong>

**I'll post a fourth chapter in which I'll give the links to your sequels, knowing that I'll write my own sequel.**

**Voilà... I hope I've said it all :/ I'll just update if I've forgotten anything.**

**Please, tell me if you like the idea or not!**

**Big fat kisses to all the ones who read this XXX**

**And as Toby Turner would say (this one's for you Lily): I leave you with one more dose of epicosity. NBB out.**

**http:/www.[DELETE THE BRACKETS]youtube[DELETE THE BRACKETS].com/watch?v=DPU-bdF5xvk**


	4. Links

Let's have a big round of applause for our first participant: **The Zetas are coming** !

Here's the link :)

**http:/www.[DELETE THE BRACKETS]fanfiction[DELETE THE BRACKETS].net/s/7464163/1/Youre_in_the_Jungle_Baby**


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